Posted by 
Keir Starmer faces a crunch by-election within weeks after a former Labour MP convicted of assault announced he is quitting parliament.
Mike Amesbury told the BBC he will “step aside at the earliest opportunity”, after he was given a suspended 10-week prison sentence for punching a man in the street.
The Runcorn repeatedly punched 45-year-old Paul Fellows in Frodsham, Cheshire, in October last year.
Amesbury, who was expelled by Labour after the incident, was elected to represent the newly-created constituency last July with a majority of nearly 15,000 over Reform UK.
Amesbury pleaded guilty to assault at Cheshire Magistrates Court in January and was jailed for 10 weeks last month. The sentence was later suspended for two years after he appealed.
In his first interview since his conviction, he said: “I’m going to step aside at the earliest opportunity.
“I’ve got processes I must go through – there’s a statutory process in terms of redundancies.”
The MP described the fallout from his court case as “difficult”, but said he “owns” his mistake.
Amesbury first became an MP for the former seat of Weaver Vale at the 2017 general election.
He was a shadow local government minister when Labour was in opposition, but stood down from the role in 2022 to focus on his constituency work.
It is not known when the by-election will take place, but it could be timed to coincide with the local elections taking place on May 1.
Although Labour enjoyed a healthy majority in Amesbury’s seat, Reform UK are now running neck-and-neck with the party in the polls, meaning it is a major test for both Starmer and Nigel Farage.
